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Roughly, how much have subscription services 'saved' you?

Have sub services saved you money on games?

  • None or Negligible

    Votes: 47 27.3%
  • I have saved a moderate amount on games

    Votes: 33 19.2%
  • I have saved a significant amount on games

    Votes: 63 36.6%
  • I have no subscriptions

    Votes: 29 16.9%

  • Total voters
    172

cormack12

Gold Member
Curious as we seem to have versus threads all the times, but just want to see what value people place on these services. These discounts can come in the form of:

PSNow
GamePass
Discounts for PS+ members
Discounts for GamePass subscribers
PS+ Collection
PS+ Instant Game Collection
Amazon Prime Benefits (usually in-game currency, redeemable items)

Not really interested in splitting hairs to cause arguments just over say the last five years how much have you gained? Let's have a positive thread on how much money we actually save!
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
PS+ has allowed me to play some games I was interested in but wasn't sure if I wanted to buy or not. Games I REALLY want I always buy at release, so it doesn't help there.
 
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Alright

Banned
I go halves on GP using the family sharing thing. I haven't bought a game since 2018. There hasn't been one game worth buying that, and any that are half decent I know will end up on GP if I wait, so...
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Its hard to tell but since PS5 is released I ended up not having to buy Days Gone and Control UE (both games were at the top of my to do list). And Soulstorm in a few weeks. For Xbox, well, gamepass doesn't release the latest stuff when its not from MS. But I wanted to replay Prey and Dishonored and was actually planning to rebuy them. I also wanted to play NG2 badly, but 3 months after I got my Xbox its delisted lol. I bought it anyway. GP is also good for the likes of Cyber Shadow I wanted to play but not pay 20 bucks for.

If you want to play the latest retail stuff day one, I'm talking Demon's Souls in november, Yakuza LaD, Hitman 3 etc... then both Plus and GP don't help. But quite some of those games I would usually pick up some time after launch, chances are they'll appear on these services and it does save me some cash. Like Dirt 5, wasn't worth anything above 25 bucks and its on GP already.
 
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Rikkori

Member
It's saved me some, but not a lot. Talking Gamepass mostly. If I didn't have it then I simply wouldn't have played some games most likely, but I don't count that as much of a saving. Same for Uplay+, I would've just waited for deep discounts if at all. But that was just 2 months anyway.
 
I'd say with gamepass I have saved a lot of money but it's spared money for other games I want to buy on the console. So it's still money spent on games
 
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German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
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Banjo64

cumsessed
Tonnes; didn’t buy Gears 5 day one, waited until it was £8 on sale and then used a £5 reward voucher towards the cost.

Haven’t bought Forza Horizon 4.

Recently bought Astral Chain, Link’s Awakening and Monster Hunter Rise on Switch. Wanted Octopath Traveller as well, but it’s £49.99 everywhere. Would have pulled the trigger at £30. Not going to buy it at all now, as it’s on Game Pass.

Would have bought Football Manager when it had dropped to £20ish but now it’s on Game Pass. Same with the Yakuza games, would have bought on sale.
 

THE DUCK

voted poster of the decade by bots
A fair amoint for sure. But just as importantly or more, it allowed me to try a lot of games I would have not paid for that turned out to be great.
 

Fredrik

Member
I claim some free PS+/XBLGold games occasionally but the big saves has been on the ”free” games on Xbox GamePass since they’re usually newer and would’ve cost more.

Games I definitely know I would’ve bought otherwise:

Forza Horizon 4
State of Decay 2
Halo 5
Gears 5
The Outer Worlds
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Super Lucky’s Tale
Minecraft Dungeons
Gears Tactics
The Medium
Octopath Traveler
=maybe $500 saved


No money saved but here are some games I would’ve 100% missed without Gamepass:

Mutant Year Zero
Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order
LevelHead
Môrkredd
Yakuza serie
Monster Hunter World
Dragon’s Quest XI
 
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kraspkibble

Permabanned.
i had PS+ between 2013-2019 and got to play some games through that. no idea how much it saved me though.

the only other gaming subscription i've had was Origin Access Premier (EA Play Pro). i paid £90 and got to play: Battlefield 1 + V + 3 + 4. FIFA 18 + 19, The Sims 4, Battlefront 2, Fallen Order, and Anthem.

i can't remember the exact prices of all the games at the time. a rough guess would be i got ~£250-300 worth of games for £90.

Thread for the mathematically challenged?

Subscription costs infinitely more than purchasing a product (or as with software a perpetual transferable license for a product). That’s not hyperbole - that is a literal statement.
true but depends how long you keep the subscription and how many games you play on it.

see what i said above. for £90, in a year i got to play ~£250-300 worth of games. if i had kept paying £90 every year it would eventually work out cheaper to buy all the games on their own. i didn't renew cause there were no more upcoming games i wanted to play.
 
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reksveks

Member
Thread for the mathematically challenged?

Subscription costs infinitely more than purchasing a product (or as with software a perpetual transferable license for a product). That’s not hyperbole - that is a literal statement.
Infinitely more? Like to see that maths and assumption that you have made.

Trying to figure out if the argument is that you truly don't own the product? Cause I think that argument don't fly.
 
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mcz117chief

Member
I think I lost or maybe broke even on ps+. It is simple really, if the game is good I will buy it, if it appears later on the ps+ then it is irrelevant because I already have it. And I don't get any games from ps+ because if the game is good then I would have bough it sooner. I pick up maybe 1 or 2 games per year from ps+ purely out of curiosity. I only use ps+ for online saves, deals and multiplayer. So if I count ps+ exclusive sales then I probably break even.
 

kraspkibble

Permabanned.
Infinitely more? Like to see that maths and assumption that you have made.
i think what they mean is a subscription can be active for an indefinite amount of time. gamepass is £11/month so if i subscribed for 3 years that'd cost £396. if i kept it for 5 years = £660, for 10 years = £1,320, etc...

their argument only stands if you spend that much money and play no more than 7 games (assuming full price of each game is £55) because then you'd actually be cheaper buying those 7 games on their own instead of paying for 3 years of gamepass. of course it would be a waste of money if you only played 7 games in 3 years. it's very likely that people will quickly get more than their moneys worth.
 
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AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
For me, PS+ and now Game Pass are more about playing games that I probably wouldn't have played otherwise, rather than saving money on stuff I wanted to buy.

I would have never entertained Forza Horizon 4, just not my kinda game, but I ended up playing 20+ hours of it via Game Pass.
 
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Schmick

Member
i had PS+ between 2013-2019 and got to play some games through that. no idea how much it saved me though.

the only other gaming subscription i've had was Origin Access Premier (EA Play Pro). i paid £90 and got to play: Battlefield 1 + V + 3 + 4. FIFA 18 + 19, The Sims 4, Battlefront 2, Fallen Order, and Anthem.

i can't remember the exact prices of all the games at the time. a rough guess would be i got ~£250-300 worth of games for £90.


true but depends how long you keep the subscription and how many games you play on it.

see what i said above. for £90, in a year i got to play ~£250-300 worth of games. if i had kept paying £90 every year it would eventually work out cheaper to buy all the games on their own. i didn't renew cause there were no more upcoming games i wanted to play.
But then in the next year they'll be another £250-£300 worth of games to play for £90 a year.
 

reksveks

Member
i think what they mean is a subscription can be active for an indefinite amount of time. gamepass is £11/month so if i subscribed for 3 years that'd cost £396. if i kept it for 5 years = £660, for 10 years = £1,320, etc...

their argument only stands if you spend that much money and play no more than 7 games (assuming full price of each game is £55) because then you'd actually be cheaper buying those 7 games on their own instead of paying for 3 years of gamepass. of course it would be a waste of money if you only played 7 games in 3 years. it's very likely that people will quickly get more than their moneys worth.
On the first point, don't think that you could argue that especially when they used the word 'literal' as subscription do end when you die.

On the second point, for people whom only play 7 games in 3 years probably not but I don't think that's the typical users of most gamers including those whom just typically cycle between fifa and cod. I think the other thing that you cant account for is the fact that having a subscription is likely to make users try more games.
 

Fredrik

Member
Infinitely more? Like to see that maths and assumption that you have made.

Trying to figure out if the argument is that you truly don't own the product? Cause I think that argument don't fly.
Lol yeah I can see on my bank account that the math don’t add up. I spend so much less money on Xbox now even though it’s my main console, it’s a night and day difference.
 

Iced Arcade

Member
saved a shit ton of money with gamepass ultimate. (bought 3 years of gold then upgraded to Ultimate for $1.)

Generally, play more games now and try other games I wouldn't have taken a chance on because of it too. The only games I bought in the last number of years were RDR2, Tlou2, and Ghost.
 

KungFucius

King Snowflake
So far I have only tried Ubisoft +. I did it for 2 months and played AC:Valhalla. I saved 50% I also played Fenyx and liked that. This prevented me from buying another game earlier so it was a bonus.

I will do Gamepass next. I wanted to try Squadrons in VR and I missed the second new Wolfenstein and Doom Eternal. Flight Sim is something I will try out, but isn't really something I would buy. So that will be maybe a 10% savings but it is forcing my decisions on what to play based on what is on the service.
 

Aion002

Member
I used to buy 2 or 3 games per month. Then I bought a Series S on launch and one year of game pass, since then I didn't bought a single game.

When I get a PS5 I will buy Demon's Souls and Returnal, but other than that I don't plan to get any other games in the near future. Game Pass is incredible and if it wasn't for Sony exclusives, Game Pass would be all I need it for gaming.
 

ToadMan

Member
Infinitely more? Like to see that maths and assumption that you have made.

Trying to figure out if the argument is that you truly don't own the product? Cause I think that argument don't fly.

You’re “trying to figure it out”? This is the thread for you then.

ITT - is it better to rent a product identical to one you could buy? When the purchase price is about the same as the rental fee?

If your answer to this is “yes, it’s better to rent” congrats - make your vote and blow your cash, but don’t kid yourself you made a saving.
 
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sublimit

Banned
Saved? I thought everyone who payed for subscription services later buys the games he plays. Or at least that's what everyone says. Aren't people saying that they use the games on subscription services (and especially Gamepass) as demos?
 
GamePass has saved a lot because the MS day one games are a lot of games I'd have bought. Some I did anyway, like Ori and SoD2 just to support the devs. Also some other games I might have bought ended up on the service, like Outriders.
 
Nothing. None of the games I got from sub services I can resell later on. That money is gone. I don’t regret it, it was fun to play the games, and worth it, but these digital services do not “save money” for the consumer. It’s actually the opposite.
 
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Saved? I thought everyone who payed for subscription services later buys the games he plays. Or at least that's what everyone says. Aren't people saying that they use the games on subscription services (and especially Gamepass) as demos?
There was a GP thread that showed users spend 20% more on games. So yes it is just an additional cost on top of what people already spend on games.
 
Thing is most of the games that end up on subscription services I already bought. But I got a lot of smaller indies that otherwise wouldn't have played.
 
Xbox Game Pass includes

20% discount off Games
10% discount off DLCs

It saved me significant amount, just before a game leaves the service.
 
I have PS+ since 2012, I think. I got my PS4 Pro in 2018.
I started the console and had about 160 Games to choose from. Since today I bought about 15 games in total and only 3 or 4 of them full price. Even with the price raise last year (Or was it 2019?), it is "worth" it in the long run.
 
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reksveks

Member
You’re “trying to figure it out”? This is the thread for you then.

ITT - is it better to rent a product identical to one you could buy? When the purchase price is about the same as the rental fee?

If your answer to this is “yes, it’s better to rent” congrats - make your vote and blow your cash, but don’t kid yourself you made a saving.
If the product was a single game/app, of course its better to buy unless the price for a single license was so prohibitive at the moment that you are possibly losing out on some value whilst not having it. Including this extra definition for stuff like adobe/autodesk programs.

Trying to figure out the relationship to gamepass as its a library of games unless your argument is that most people don't play enough games that justifies the gamepass cost (if you were assuming that you could buy the game at a cheap enough price so the maths adds up)
 
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reksveks

Member
Saved? I thought everyone who payed for subscription services later buys the games he plays. Or at least that's what everyone says. Aren't people saying that they use the games on subscription services (and especially Gamepass) as demos?
Some people save money, some people spend more.

The target audience for gamepass is obviously the latter but don't think that audience is on NeoGAF.
 

Three

Member
Curious as we seem to have versus threads all the times, but just want to see what value people place on these services. These discounts can come in the form of:

PSNow
GamePass
Discounts for PS+ members
Discounts for GamePass subscribers
PS+ Collection
PS+ Instant Game Collection
Amazon Prime Benefits (usually in-game currency, redeemable items)

Not really interested in splitting hairs to cause arguments just over say the last five years how much have you gained? Let's have a positive thread on how much money we actually save!
There should be an option for I have spent more money, not saved.

A subscription costs me money. I have a backlog of games that I will never get through but I have spent money on gamepass pc and PS now when it was on sale. Didn't really use it because I already have too many bought games I haven't completed.

Saved? I thought everyone who payed for subscription services later buys the games he plays. Or at least that's what everyone says. Aren't people saying that they use the games on subscription services (and especially Gamepass) as demos?

I'm pretty sure they don't. I bet the "gamepass subscribers spend 20% more on games" or whatever the statistic was was in fact them actually paying for gamepass every month.
 
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Fredrik

Member
You’re “trying to figure it out”? This is the thread for you then.

ITT - is it better to rent a product identical to one you could buy? When the purchase price is about the same as the rental fee?

If your answer to this is “yes, it’s better to rent” congrats - make your vote and blow your cash, but don’t kid yourself you made a saving.

I don’t get how you can say the purchase price is about the same as the ”rental price”.

The purchase price for me so far would’ve been about $600, and this is if I completely ignore all the games I’ve played that I would never have bought but ended up playing and actually enjoyed since I got to try them for free. So these are low figures.

And the ”rental fee” so far has been about $100.

Today:
$600 - $100 = $500 saved

My ”rental fee” will keep increasing over time of course since every year adds another yearly subscription fee, but I can guarantee that my purchase price would have increased more over the same period. This year alone we still have a number of big releases coming that I’ll pay $0 to play while I would’ve payed $60-70 for each of them without the subscription.

The downside is that if I’ll archive my console and cancel my sub in a few years I won’t have anything to play on it when I start it up again without starting a new sub.

But I’ve gone through this with movies too and buying VHS, DVD, Bluray movies and TVshow boxes has honestly been a huge waste of money. I still have a couple of hundred movies on shelves and they’re barely worth anything at all now, in 2021 they’re with a few exceptions a waste of space and plastic.

And while movie streaming is in lower quality I still see 99.9% of all movies that way now.

With game subscriptions like Xbox Gamepass there are no quality downgrades. Same games, same quality, less money. 👌

Those who don’t normally buy many games each year should look elsewhere though. Then it’s not cheaper. That I can agree on.
 
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Gatox

Banned
Thread for the mathematically challenged?

Subscription costs infinitely more than purchasing a product (or as with software a perpetual transferable license for a product). That’s not hyperbole - that is a literal statement.
How do you figure out it's infinitely more?
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Honestly not much, because when the game goes out of the service and I like it or it has DLCs and I didn't finished them, I bought the game.

But my gaming is waaay more varied and I discovered tons of great games, so for me it has amazing value.
 
2020 PS wrap-up said I only played 2h of multiplayer that required PS+. :lollipop_anxious_sweat:
Thinking I saved something by subscribing would be naive.

I buy and play the games I want, can't remember what is the last game I played from PS+
 

Aion002

Member
Saved? I thought everyone who payed for subscription services later buys the games he plays. Or at least that's what everyone says. Aren't people saying that they use the games on subscription services (and especially Gamepass) as demos?
I honestly think that most don't. Most people pay 60/70 usd on a game and can't even bother to finish it... Why they would end up buying a game that they had available and never cared to see the end?

Sure, a minority probably buys everything that they enjoy... But the rest? I doubt it.
 

Fredrik

Member
2020 PS wrap-up said I only played 2h of multiplayer that required PS+. :lollipop_anxious_sweat:
Thinking I saved something by subscribing would be naive.

I buy and play the games I want, can't remember what is the last game I played from PS+
That earn your free games library service model sucks. Google did the same with Stadia. Keep subbing and you can add this and that game each month. Cancel the sub and you’ll forever miss out on the free games during your off-time. I hate it.

XBGamepass and PSNow is much better, the library is the same for both old and new subscribers, if you want to go real cheap you can wait until the end of the year and subscribe for 2-3 months and play through the important games for that year, then cancel and wait for the next end of the year, rinse and repeat.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
It's stopped me many times from buying games that I didn't like once I tried them. And I've been able to play quite a few indie games that I never would have purchased to begin with since I knew I would probably never play them more than once. so I spend less overall And buy fewer games overall, but the ones I buy are ones I know I like.
 

OrionNebula

Member
Quite a bit. While there’s a lot of throwaway stuff in there (so many fucking racing games), there’s also ‘’free’’ games I enjoyed quite a bit (I played the shit out of games like Rime, Detroit Becomes Human, Bioshock Trilogy, Gone Home, etc)

I also play for a few hours games I’d never buy myself (ex : Destity, Call of Duty) just to get a glimpse, and then forget about them that quick

And I just got that $1/1 Month PS Now NA deal and I intent on abusing this (plus games I always wanted to play but never could, like Papo & Yo and Rain, that were exclusive to PS Now, it seems)

I try to get my money’s worth, for sure
 

Schmick

Member
Nothing. None of the games I got from sub services I can resell later on. That money is gone. I don’t regret it, it was fun to play the games, and worth it, but these digital services do not “save money” for the consumer. It’s actually the opposite.
So you buy a game full price? And then sell it after you are finished with it?
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Not as much as I would think. Gears 5 and Outer Worlds are the only games I can think of.

I've honestly gotten a WHOLE lot more out of PC Gamepass than Xbox. Mainly because MS added achievements and they are great for extending my digital penis in the form of gamerscore.

Don't laugh. We all want a bigger score.
 
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